


too much

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: "i can't see", Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fear, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s02e15 Mr. Sandman, Temporary Blindness, Whump, both really!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29547057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: febuwhump day 18: "i can't see."He opens his eyes.His eyes are open.Right?He blinks a few times, rapidly, stopping in a moment where he is absolutelysurehis eyes are open.There’s nothing there.He can’t see.
Relationships: Nick Burkhardt & Hank Griffin, Nick Burkhardt & Monroe, Nick Burkhardt & Rosalee Calvert, Rosalee Calvert/Monroe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	too much

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!! this fic is set relatively soon after s02e15 where nick gets blinded. this was pretty fun to write! hope you enjoy :)

“You’re really running yourself into the ground for this case, huh, buddy?” Monroe asks, as Nick yawns for what feels like the hundredth time that day. 

“No other choice,” Nick tells him, reaching for his coffee cup only to find it empty. He sighs and shoves it away, not having the energy to get up and get himself more.

“Still,” Rosalee chimes in, tossing aside one book and reaching for another, “when was the last time you actually slept?”

Nick shrugs. “Last night,” he answers, setting aside his own book to rub at his exhausted eyes. 

“And how long did you sleep for, exactly?” Hank asks, looking at Nick innocently, like he’s expecting a reasonable answer. 

“I don’t know, maybe an hour?” Nick replies, testily. “Let’s just get back to work.”

“Okay, okay,” Hank says, raising his hands in defeat. “We’ll stop.”

The four of them continue to pore through the tomes, occasionally stopping the others to get input on an idea or ask whether they think this could be what they’re looking for. It’s a fairly normal scene for the group, and ordinarily something Nick genuinely enjoys, but today he hates it. They’re all too loud and he is  _ way  _ too tired. But they need to solve this case, and quickly, so he’s trying his very best to ignore those two things. 

Around noon, they take a break for lunch. Monroe and Rosalee head out to grab everyone sandwiches from the shop down the street, leaving Nick and Hank to discuss their case. 

“Nick, come in here,” Hank calls to Nick, from the side room. 

“Yeah?” 

Hank’s sitting on the couch, looking at something on his phone. “Sit down,” he says, and pats the space next to him, so Nick sits. 

Hank stands up as soon as Nick sits down. “Sleep,” he says, very sternly.

“Hank…”

“What? I’ll wake you up when Monroe and Rosalee get back. You’re not sleeping enough, and I  _ know  _ you’re focusing on this case, but you’re no good to us if you’re too exhausted to actually  _ do  _ anything.”

Nick grudgingly has to admit that Hank has a point. He stretches himself out on the couch and closes his eyes, finding it rather easy to fall asleep. 

\--

“We’re back!” Nick hears Monroe announce cheerfully from the front of the shop. He jerks out of a fairly deep sleep, then stands up, opening his eyes. 

He opens his eyes. 

His eyes are open. 

Right?

He blinks a few times, rapidly, stopping in a moment where he is absolutely  _ sure  _ his eyes are open. 

There’s nothing there. 

He can’t see. 

This all feels too horribly familiar. Just a few weeks ago he’d been in this very room, with worms digging into his eyes and the threat of permanent blindness looming over his head.

What if they’d been too late? What if something had happened since then? Maybe one worm had been left behind, maybe, maybe, maybe…

_ He can’t see.  _

He walks into the main room with an urgency that nearly makes him trip over his own feet. 

“You good there?” Monroe asks, his voice echoing in Nick’s ears. 

“I can’t see,” Nick says, quietly, like it’s a confession he doesn’t want to make. 

“What?”

“I can’t see,” he repeats, feeling the fear edge its way into his voice.  _ “I can’t see.” _

He feels weird. Dizzy, kind of. Strangely weak. Cold?

It’s too much, too many things at once, the most important of which is the fact that he  _ cannot see. _ He feels one of his legs buckle underneath him, and suddenly there are footsteps, too many of them all at once, blending together into one loud noise, and then there are arms around him. They feel strange against his body, too  _ much. _ Too much, too much, too much.

He’s back on the couch. As soon as he realizes that, he’s shooting back up again, head spinning unpleasantly. It’s too familiar, being blind and lying on this couch. 

“Wha’s happening?” he asks, hoping desperately that one of them knows. It takes him a moment to even find those words. He feels like he’s thinking underwater. He’s spinning. He needs to sit back down.

A single hand - Rosalee’s - guides him back down onto the couch, and he feels her sit next to him, too close, so that he can feel the warmth of her body. It feels incredibly uncomfortable, and he shies away.  _ Too much.  _

“I don’t know,” Rosalee says, and now her voice is further away. “You said you couldn’t see.”

“I can’t. Why can’t I see?”

“I don’t know,” Rosalee repeats, her voice calm. 

He knows she’s trying to sound reassuring, hears Hank and Monroe start to whisper thoughts and ideas, knows they’re all there for him, but exactly none of this makes him feel any better about it. He’s scared.  _ Really  _ scared. Nobody knows what’s happening to him or why but he  _ cannot see  _ and he keeps picturing the face of the Jinnamuru Xunte that’s been appearing in his dreams over and over. 

_ He’s dead, _ Nick tries to remind himself, but logical reasoning is often dwarfed by fear, and all he can think of is a constant string of  _ what ifs  _ that leave him spinning. 

_ He can’t see.  _

He shivers, half in fear, half in reaction to the cold feeling enveloping him. And then he can’t stop shivering, or shaking, really, and his breathing picks up speed and he _ can’t see can’t see can’t see -  _

“It’s okay, buddy.” Monroe’s voice sounds far too loud, like he’s shouting into Nick’s ears, and Nick instinctively raises shaking hands to cover them. 

Hank’s hand touches his shoulder, impossibly gentle, but Nick jerks backwards anyway. It’s all too much, everything feels like it’s been amplified by a factor of ten. He supposes that’s what happens when one of your already-heightened senses gets taken away. 

“Nick, hey,” Rosalee says, and her voice still grates on his ears, though he can tell from the way it sounds that she’s whispering. “You need to breathe, okay? Nice and deep.”

He tries, recognizing the importance of not working himself up to hyperventilation, but he’s not very successful. Everything is so confusing and overwhelming and frankly terrifying, so he figures he’s allowed to freak out a bit. 

Still. He breathes a little, tries to get himself under control, and must do an okay job, because nobody says anything else. He hears them all get up and leave, hears them talking in the main room, but doesn’t focus on what they’re saying. Nothing good, he’s sure. 

He has no idea how long they’re all out there for, but slowly, he begins to realize that their voices are returning to a normal level. He calls out to them, hears running footsteps approach. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I dunno,” he says. “You’re...quieter.”

“Quieter?”

“Yeah, before you were all really loud. Now you sound...almost normal.”

Even his own voice is returning to an acceptable level. He turns his attention to the rest of himself and finds that he’s no longer shivering. He takes a deep breath that doesn’t catch in his panicked throat. 

“You think it’s getting better?” Monroe asks. 

“I still can’t see,” Nick tells him, which kind of scares him more than the  _ everything else _ before. If the rest of his body, his senses, are going back to normal, does that mean his vision is at its “normal” state now? 

“Hey, maybe it’s just taking a little longer to come back,” Hank says comfortingly, and this time, Nick doesn’t flinch away from the hand on his shoulder.  _ That’s possible,  _ he decides, and relaxes minutely. 

\--

“Anything yet?”

“No.”

“How long has it been?”

“Ten minutes since the last time you asked.”

“Anything?”

“No.”

He’s growing weirdly used to the fear. He can’t see. But none of them have the slightest idea as to what to do, so all they can do is hurry up and wait for something - or nothing - to happen. It’s kind of boring, and eventually even the fear itself becomes boring, normal. 

Nick blinks, and suddenly there’s a smudge of light in front of him. He blinks again, making sure he hadn’t imagined it, and then again, just to  _ really  _ be sure. 

“I can see,” he says, slowly, quietly, like if he’s too loud he’ll scare off that little smudge of light.

“Really?”

“Not much, just some light. But yeah.”

_ Very  _ slowly, that light begins to resolve itself into shapes. A picture on the wall. A table. Monroe. Rosalee. Hank. 

He smiles, looks closely at each of them. “I can see you,” he says.  _ “I can see you.” _

They’re all smiling at him, now, too, and asking him how he feels and if he has any idea at all as to what had happened and wondering whether they should go to the doctor? And whether they should have done that in the first place? And  _ no,  _ Hank, this kind of stuff isn’t the kind of stuff you can bring to a doctor, and how do you know that, Monroe? Maybe it’s not weird, or not  _ your  _ kind of weird anyway. And it really doesn’t matter, guys, the important thing is he can see again, and...

Nick sits there and listens to his friends talk, watches them intently, gratefully. Watches their hands gesturing, feet shifting, eyes blinking, every single movement completely visible. He sees his field of vision cloud up again, but doesn’t freak out. It’s just tears, which are more than a little embarrassing, but nobody says a thing. They just keep talking, keep moving, keep letting him look at them.

They’re the best sight he thinks he’s ever seen.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! in case you are curious this is a completely plausible thing to happen! it's called a silent migraine and presents a whole range of symptoms such as temporary vision loss or distortion, coldness or heat flashes, confusion, etc. I used a lot of the symptoms in this but if you want to use the trope there are a lot to choose from, and the cool thing is there's no actual headache accompanying it!! so it's fun if like me you don't feel like writing a boring old headache! anyway thanks so much for reading, hope you enjoyed!


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